For better or worse, a lot of indie games are usually the product of a single, unyielding vision. Brought to life by a variety of influences and a desire to see someone’s unique ideas come to life, they’re often a way to see something thoroughly detached from the mainstream. Take Alisa, for example. Who could’ve ever expected a throwback to classic survival horror games to have not only a stealth section, but an arcadey rail shooter section afterwards without so much as a breath to take it all in?
Another game I’ve taken a look at recently managed to embody this in a way that I absolutely love, for the most part. Labyrinth of the Demon King, published by Top Hat Studios, absolutely blew me away when I initially checked it out during one of Steam’s explosive Next Fest events. At a glance, it was a strange mix of elements that ape those of King’s Field, Condemned: Criminal Origins, and the fantastical horror of both Japanese folklore and the prolific Silent Hill series. But now that it’s officially available to play from start to finish, is it worth checking out for yourself? And what makes it stand out in a sea of other prominent indie horror games?
Japanese Demons and Medieval Horrors
It’s a tale as old as time. The world is in ruin, with famine starving the masses, society fraying at the seams, and monstrous demons roaming the countryside. Things aren’t so hot for you, a lonely warrior, either. Serving under Lord Takeda Nobumitsu, you find yourself alone in the wilderness after Nobumitsu sacrifices his own life to save yours, following a deadly ambush orchestrated by a silver-tongued demon king. Left with nothing but the burning fires of revenge to light your way, you march towards the demon king’s expansive domicile, determined to take their life before yours is ultimately snuffed out.
Labyrinth of the Demon King is absolutely gorgeous in the most grotesque way possible. A love letter to PlayStation-style graphics, you can expect one of the most authentic utilizations of texture dithering, on top of chunky models and dense fog, in the indie horror space at the moment. In no way am I exaggerating when I say that Labyrinth has some of the most impressively oppressive atmosphere I’ve felt in quite a while, which pairs well with the game’s overt survival horror elements and its plodding, methodical pacing. Cutscenes are even given a pre-rendered appearance that only distorts the visuals further, creating this kind of messy, but unsettling presentation that makes each and every new threat you come across all the more intimidating. The audio mixing for these does occasionally come off as a bit too loud, though. Maybe it adds to the spookiness.
The game is first-person, but you’re thankfully given some agency in how you want to tackle its numerous horrors. Sure, you can run away from knife-wielding children, gnashing monsters armed with broken doors and clubs, and reptiles twisted into misshapen wads of spindly limbs and poisonous flesh, but that’s nowhere near as fun as taking the fight to them. With a bevy of weapons spread across three types — slashing, blunt, and hybrid — along with a few ranged options, you’re able to crack heads and sever limbs to your heart’s content. Or, at least until you run out of stamina.
You have your standard health bar and a stamina meter, the latter dictating how many times you can reliably attack and dodge. It slowly refills over time, but not quickly enough to make aggressiveness a viable option. Instead, you’re going to have to play carefully. Wait for enemy attacks and parry them. Break through blocks with your heavy attack. Use your kicks, your unlimited sprint and jumps, and your dodges to make space. The latter options definitely throw in some more things to think about; your sprint, for instance, allows you to move much quicker at the cost of pausing your current stamina regeneration as long as it’s active. Your dodge, meanwhile, doesn’t use any stamina as long as you don’t repeatedly use it within a set amount of time. It’s simple, but effective. Every weapon you find also has its own attack speed, damage, and stamina usage to consider.
Something else to consider is how you want to approach the game’s progression. You see, to take on the titular demon king, you’re going to have to collect four different keys that lead to their grimy throne room. Where are the keys? They’re hidden across a handful of different towers in their stronghold, interconnected via a sprawling courtyard. While you’ll have to tackle the first tower before entering the courtyard, you’ll have your choice of taking on the next two in whichever order you’d like. It’s not much, but it’s appreciated.
Getting to that point will definitely be a hurdle, however. Until you get used to the shockingly-fast attack speeds of some enemies, as well as how to navigate the interconnected floors of the first tower, you’re going to struggle for a bit with the initial limitations of your weaponry and healing items. There are only so many of the latter in the world, and your starting weapon, a busted katana, isn’t much better than sneezing on your foes. It gets easier, but it’ll be an uphill climb to get there.
Once you gain access to the tea house, though, you’re given some breathing room. Sitting down for some tea gives you some free healing items, and the tea house itself houses some vendors to buy useful items and upgrade your equipment. You can even interact with a handful of characters you rescue throughout the story. I can’t get into much more detail beyond that, but it’s worth going out of your way to find them. I will say this: don’t focus so much on upgrading your armor, as the benefit you get from doing so is nowhere near as vital as your weapons.
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You even have some character growth to deal with. Beyond just upgrading your equipment, you can also burn essence at shrines (which double as save points) in order to grow either your health or stamina pools. It really makes rifling through every drawer and loose cabinet feel worthwhile.
When everything clicks together, it forms this delightful, intimately intense experience that I had a really fun time with. Enemy encounters become this tense, almost unexpected thing that you have to give all your immediate attention to, lest you run away into another foe. Resources being as scarce as they are (in the beginning, at least) forces you to quickly learn how to best tackle each beast that crosses your path. Sure, the introduction of talismans towards the middle of the game does tilt the scale much more heavily in your favor, but these aren’t just something that you can burn through. Minus the one that teleports you to the tea house.
Labyrinth of the List of Grievances
A few things did ultimately strike me as odd, however. I can appreciate a unique vision, but there are definitely some things going on in Labyrinth of the Demon King that I think bring down the final experience a tad. It’s nothing deal-breaking, but all of them together do draw some annoyance out of me.
Take the Nuribotoke, for instance. It makes its presence known a little while into the first tower, and while its initial appearance is certainly intimidating, it starts to wear on me every time it shows its face. It’s a pursuer enemy, meaning that it can’t be killed, it’ll perpetually give chase whenever it appears, and it takes significant effort to temporarily bring it down. With how tight some of the game’s corridors are, how long it can take to bring down a single foe early on, and just how often he appears in the ensuing towers, he quickly became something that bugged the Hell out of me more than anything else.
The same goes for how enemies can sometimes spawn directly in front of you as soon as you finish a room transition. Or how many locked doors there are in areas like the prison that don’t lead anywhere. Or how insect enemies can stack up to almost two minutes’ worth of a poison debuff that can, for a time at least, only be cured with an antidote.
What threw me for a loop is arguably the most common thing you’ll come across. Death is inevitable in Labyrinth of the Demon King, though the punishment for doing so is fairly modest. You don’t get booted back to your last save whenever you bite the dust. Instead, you’re simply brought back to the last shrine you passed by, sans any items you’ve used before your demise. It’s not the worst thing, necessarily, but I actively went out of my way to reload older saves instead of going through this. I’d rather keep what I failed to use effectively than slam my head against a wall.
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The game’s progression is also somewhat questionable. Every subsequent area I visited, from the first tower to the bath house to the holding area, seemed to lose more elaborate detail with every new place discovered. It felt front-loaded, almost. The most elaborate and enjoyable area to traverse is easily the first tower, whereas the sprawling prison that made up the last leg of my journey was just a maze of corridors, locked doors, and stairwells. It’s not terrible, mind you, but there’s definitely a shift that you start to feel as things start to wind down.
Speaking of which, some may be put off by the game’s surprisingly brief length. While some of the best survival horror games on the market barely top six hours, I was admittedly surprised by how abruptly the journey comes to an end. It’s more understandable when you learn that it’s only a single person, J. R. Hudepohl, behind it, making the game’s positives shine even brighter in comparison.
Should You Play Labyrinth of the Demon King?
I’d say that I ultimately had a positive experience with Labyrinth of the Demon King. After all, I was hooked from the demo, and while it didn’t necessarily scratch the same itch that Butcher’s Creek did, I was surprised by just how much it stuck to its guns. It has its inspirations, but they feel evenly weighted as to form something wholly unique instead of just mimicking any individual thing. What I’m trying to say is that it’s doing its own thing. Whether or not you’ll enjoy that depends on whether you want to meet the game on its own terms or not.
Things are bound to get better in the future, too. Hudepohl has been nothing if not receptive to the game’s feedback, positive and negative alike, and a plethora of bug fixes and additional features are currently in the works. I’m delighted that an especially irritating bug, where your lantern or torch would become disabled when entering outdoor areas, is being addressed.
While I do wish certain things were different, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed with how nicely most of Labyrinth of the Demon King comes together. Aesthetically, I think it absolutely nails what it’s trying to go for. I found that the gameplay was engaging enough to get me towards the game’s brief but satisfying conclusion. I wish I could say more, but I’d think a lot of what Labyrinth has to offer is at its best when you’re thrown into the thick of it.
Labyrinth of the Demon King is available on Steam, GOG, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.
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